Holiness, Sanctification, and Christian Perfection — Unit 4: Entire Sanctification: Instant and Gradual, the Methodist View of Growth in Perfect Love

Key Verse

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. State the question of how and when entire sanctification is received, and name three main answers to it.

2. Explain Wesley's teaching that there is a gradual work before and after, and a moment in which perfect love is received.

3. Support the Methodist view of growth in perfect love from Scripture, including Proverbs 4:18, Hebrews 6:1 and 2 Peter 1:5-8.

4. Describe the Holiness "second work of grace" view fairly, and say what the Methodist view agrees with and where it differs.

5. Counsel a believer who has no datable crisis experience and fears that he lacks something.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Wesleyan family, for Wesleyan students. It is theologically conservative. Here the family has an honest difference. This course presents both the Holiness "second work of grace" and the Methodist view of Christian perfection as growth in perfect love, and it leans toward the Methodist view. We say so openly. We hold it with humility, and we honor our Holiness brothers and sisters, whose churches carried this message to the world. Unit 5 will set out the Holiness view in full, and then weigh it.

The Question: How and When?

Unit 3 taught what Christian perfection is: the love of God and neighbor filling the heart. This unit asks how and when God gives it. There are three main answers among evangelicals.

First answer: only at death or at the resurrection. Many Reformed Christians teach that sin remains in the believer until the end of life, and that complete holiness comes with glorification. We study this view in Unit 6.

Second answer: a second definite work of grace. The Holiness churches teach that God gives entire sanctification as a second work, after the new birth, usually in a moment, to the believer who fully consecrates himself and believes. Unit 5 explains this view.

Third answer: growth in perfect love. In the Methodist view, the believer grows in grace from the new birth, and God is ready to fill the heart with perfect love. It may be received in a moment, but it is approached through a gradual work, and it is followed by further growth. This is the view this course favors.

Wesley's Answer: Gradual and Instant

Wesley's best-known statement is in his sermon "The Scripture Way of Salvation" (1765). He taught that sanctification begins at the new birth and goes on gradually. A man dies to sin and grows in grace little by little. But he also taught that there is an instant when God gives the heart perfect love. He compared this with death. A person may be dying for some time, yet he does not die until the moment the soul leaves the body. In the same way, he said, there is a gradual dying to sin, and there is the instant in which sin's life in the heart is ended and love fills it.

So Wesley held both ideas. There is a gradual work before the moment: repentance, the obedience of the believer, the use of the means of grace, and growth in knowledge and love. There is a gradual work after the moment: no one stops growing. And there is the moment itself. Wesley saw no reason to put gradual and instant against each other. Both belong to the one work of God.

Then Wesley gave a pastoral rule that is the heart of the Methodist teaching. A believer should expect this blessing by faith, as he is, and now. He should not wait for some future time, and should not try to earn it by works first. If it is by faith, it can be received this moment. This is why Wesley told his preachers to speak of perfect love in every place, and why the Methodist view is not a doctrine of delay. We pray for it today.

Wesley also saw that people do not experience this in the same way. Some can name the time when God gave them a clear and settled love. Others cannot say when, and yet they bear the fruit of perfect love. Wesley did not wish to make the story of one believer a rule for all.

Growth in Perfect Love

What does it mean to speak of "growth in perfect love"? It does not mean that perfect love is never reached. It means that love is the kind of thing that grows. A heart may be wholly given to God today, and may love Him more deeply next year. A cup may be full, and yet the cup itself can be made larger. So the believer is made perfect in love and yet goes on to perfection. These two ideas belong together in Wesley.

The Bible supports this picture in many places.

Proverbs 4:18. "But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day." The path of the righteous grows brighter. It has no stop in this life.

2 Corinthians 3:18. Paul says that we are being changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. The verb shows a continuing change.

Ephesians 4:13-15. The church grows to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and believers are to grow up in all things into Him.

Philippians 1:9-11. Paul prays that the love of the Philippians may abound still more and more, so that they may be sincere and without offense.

1 Thessalonians 3:12 and 4:1, 10. Paul prays that the Thessalonians will increase and abound in love. He urges them to abound still more in a walk that pleases God, and to love one another more and more.

2 Peter 1:5-8. Peter tells believers to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, and says that if these things are theirs and abound, they will keep them from being barren in the knowledge of Christ.

2 Peter 3:18. "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Hebrews 6:1. "Let us go on to perfection."

Hebrews 10:14. "For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." In one sentence the writer joins a finished work and a continuing work: perfected, and being sanctified.

These passages do not deny that God can fill the heart with love at once. They show that the Christian life is a road with a beginning, a middle and no end in this world. A pastor who preaches only a single moment, and says nothing of growth, has left out much of the Bible.

The Moment in Scripture

The Methodist view does not deny the moment. Scripture speaks of decisive acts. Paul calls believers to "present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1), and to yield their members to God as instruments of righteousness (Romans 6:13). He prays that God Himself "sanctify you completely" (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Peter says God purified the hearts of the Gentiles by faith (Acts 15:9). In every age the Spirit has given some Christians a sudden and clear experience in which the love of God filled their hearts. Wesley collected such testimonies and believed them. We do not doubt them. We say that the Bible shows God working in both ways, and that He is free to give the blessing in a moment or through a growth that He alone measures.

The Holiness "Second Work" View, Stated Fairly

The Church of the Nazarene, The Wesleyan Church and other Holiness bodies teach that entire sanctification is a work of God after the new birth, and different from it. In this view the believer who is born again still has an inward bent to sin, sometimes called original sin or inbred sin. God removes or cleanses it in a moment when the believer, having fully consecrated himself to God, believes. Many Holiness writers call this the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is "second" in order, because it follows the new birth, and it is a "work of grace" because God does it and not man. They expect a clear crisis, and they invite every believer to seek it now.

This view has real strengths. It takes the sin that remains in believers seriously. It calls Christians to give everything to God. It builds expectation and urgency. It has led millions to a deeper life. Many Methodists have gladly learned from it. We treat it fully in Unit 5.

Where the Methodist View Differs, and Why We Lean Toward It

We lean toward the Methodist view for four reasons. We state them in a spirit of brotherhood.

First, it is closest to Wesley's own balance. Wesley insisted on the gradual and the instant together. He would not make the crisis the whole story, or growth the whole story. Some later teaching kept the moment and gave less room to the growth.

Second, it fits the Bible's many passages on growth. The passages above show that the whole Christian life is a growing in love. The "second work" view agrees that growth follows, but it can make growth before the crisis seem less important.

Third, it avoids setting up two classes of believers. If entire sanctification is a necessary second step, a believer without a datable experience may feel second-class, and an anxious believer may seek a sign. Wesley wished to guard people from both pride and despair. The Methodist view lets a believer say, "I am growing, I am seeking perfect love, I trust God for it now," without having to find the date.

Fourth, it respects the Greek verbs more carefully. Holiness teachers often point to the aorist tense in verses such as 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Romans 12:1 as signs of a single act. Greek scholars caution that the aorist presents an action as a whole, and does not tell us whether it took a moment or a long time. We cannot build the doctrine of a crisis on the tense alone. We note that Hebrews 10:14 joins a perfect-tense verb with a present participle. Language alone cannot settle our difference.

Historians and Scholars

Both camps claim Wesley. Holiness historians point to his strong statements that the blessing is received in an instant and to the testimonies he published. Methodists point to his teaching that the work is gradual before and after, and that he did not make a datable experience the test of a true believer. Scholars also note that in the early 1760s some people in the London societies made extravagant claims to perfection, and Wesley had to correct them. This history warns us. A doctrine of a clear experience can drift into boasting if love and humility are not kept first. Our answer is to return to Wesley's text and to Scripture, where both the instant and the gradual are found.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: Without a clear crisis, believers will drift and never seek holiness. Holiness teachers fear that growth language can become an excuse for slowness.

Our answer. The danger is real. Wesley's answer is that we must expect perfect love now, by faith, and must preach it constantly. The Methodist view includes decisive consecration and urgent prayer. A pastor who preaches growth without calling for surrender has not preached the Methodist view.

Objection 2: If it is gradual, it is never reached. Some say that a doctrine of growth makes perfect love a distant ideal.

Our answer. Wesley said that God can give it in a moment, and that we should ask for it today. Growth after the moment is not a sign that the moment did not come. A full heart can grow larger.

Objection 3: Reformed teachers say no one is entirely sanctified before glorification.

Our answer. We agree that all believers depend on Christ and need growth. But Scripture commands us to love God with all our heart and prays that God will sanctify us completely (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Unit 6 gives the full answer.

Pastoral Application

Sofia has served in your church for thirty years. She prays, gives, visits the sick, and loves the Lord. A visiting evangelist from a Holiness church said, "If you cannot name the day and hour you were sanctified, you have not been." Sofia comes to you in tears. "Pastor, I have never had a special experience. Am I missing something?"

You do not mock the evangelist. Many of his people have a clear experience of God, and you honor it. You tell Sofia that Scripture shows many roads to the same love. You read Proverbs 4:18 and 2 Peter 3:18 with her. You ask whether she loves God and her neighbor more than she did ten years ago, and whether she desires to love Him with all her heart. She says yes. You tell her that God does not ask her to find a date. He asks her to trust Him now for perfect love, and to keep growing. You pray with her, asking God to fill her heart. You suggest she keep her place in her class meeting and in the Lord's Supper. And you tell her not to be afraid of those who have had a clear moment, for they are brothers and sisters in the same hope.

Summary

The question of how and when entire sanctification is received has three main answers: at death, as a second work of grace, or through growth in perfect love. Wesley taught a gradual work before and after, and an instant in which perfect love is received, and he told believers to expect it by faith, as they are, and now. Scripture shows the Christian life as a growing road (Proverbs 4:18; Ephesians 4:13-15; 2 Peter 1:5-8; 3:18; Hebrews 6:1; 10:14), and also speaks of decisive acts (Romans 12:1; Acts 15:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). The Holiness view teaches a second definite work, usually a clear crisis, and has real strengths. This course leans toward the Methodist view because it keeps Wesley's balance, honors the Bible's passages on growth, avoids two classes of believers, and respects the limits of Greek grammar. We hold it humbly, and we urge every believer to seek perfect love now.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, "The Scripture Way of Salvation," in his Sermons.

• John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766).

• John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, on Hebrews 6 and 10, and 1 Thessalonians 5.

• John Fletcher, Checks to Antinomianism.

• Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness (1843), for the Holiness view, studied in Unit 5.

• Holiness Through the Ages (Coleman, Danielson and Parry), the Master's textbook for this course.

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